


Disposable Hero

by mercury6



Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Child Abandonment, Cutting, Homelessness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Self-Harm, Triggers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-06 01:27:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15183704
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercury6/pseuds/mercury6
Summary: Wally makes a discovery and does a shitload of reflection, also known as 'Wally throws himself a pity party'. Being a teenager sucks.





	1. Trash Day

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Do You Like That, Baby?](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/395387) by music-is-luv. 
  * Inspired by [Do It Again!](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/395390) by music-is-luv. 



> I realize that Wally's folks are really nice, supportive parents in Young Justice. This story is an AU where Wally's parents are dicks. It's inspired by music-is-luv's 'Do You Like That, Baby?' and 'Do It Again'. 
> 
> I wrote a follow-up with 'Tell Me You Want It' that deals with Wally and his not-so-appropriate relationship with the Man of Steel.
> 
> 'Disposable Hero' picks up right after 'Tell Me You Want It'. Other characters are mentioned only. Wally POV. There's hella teen angst and backstory. Trigger warning for self-harm and cutting because of shitty parents. I've broken this into four chapters because it's kind of heavy. Please forgive any errors, mistakes are mine. Feedback welcomed.

When Wally finally slows his momentum to a stop, he returns to a neighborhood still lingering in the sleepy pre-dawn hours. He doesn't keep what anyone would call a normal schedule, not that his Uncle Barry or Aunt Iris would have any idea about that, thank goodness, but right now it's even more important that he's not seen and the darkness is the perfect thing to slip in unnoticed. 

Even so, Wally’s in no rush to get where he’s going. He takes the last few blocks at a leisurely pace, procrastinating for as long as he can, ignoring how exhausted he feels. 

The coolness and the damp from the last leg of his journey cling uncomfortably to his skin. His suit is light and breathable and able to wick moisture away from his body, but his civilian clothes not so much. He feels clammy, hot and cold at the same time and slightly ill. 

Wally knows those discomforts are mostly all in his head, but that doesn’t make him feel any better. Going back to his parents’ house is the last thing he wants, but it’s all he has at the moment.

He hates it there.

Still, he’s desperate enough not to give two shits where he sleeps, so long as he can shut his eyes and sleep the sleep of the dead for a few precious hours.

He lets his thoughts empty, picturing the calming ebb and flow of the waves on the beach at Happy Harbor, letting his feet blindly carry him along the familiar route to his final destination. 

When he reaches the paved walkway leading to his front door, he’s reminded it’s been painted a glossy white. It’s nothing like the old, weathered finish he’d grown accustomed to so it still looks off, like he's at the wrong house or something. Wally guesses it’s supposed to be some kind of improvement. A freshly painted front door is considered to have good ‘curb appeal’ or some shit like that. 

The only reason he knows that bit of minutia is because M’gann has an unholy love for HGTV and Food Network that’s drawn the whole team into its domestic thrall and sadly, Wally’s no exception. So now he can thank his favorite hot Martian for some of his most epic food cravings as well as his newly acquired, but basically useless home improvement know-how. 

But even he has to admit there must be something to those fucking programs if the realtor sign posted in his yard is any indication - the sunny, yellow one with the word ‘SOLD’ tacked on in big red block letters. 

Yeah. You can’t really argue with those kind of results, although it is a pretty rude way to find out you’re suddenly homeless. 

If you ask him, (which, surprise, no one did) the place always has been and always will be a shitty-ass dump. Someone still bought his crappy little house anyway. Go figure.

Some of his worst memories took place under that roof so ordinarily he’d be happy to see the damned place go. But seeing as how Wally had no idea his mother was planning to sell the house at all and no clue where the woman herself is, it’s a recent development that more or less leaves him on the street, holding a flaming bag of dog shit. 

Well, metaphorically speaking, anyway. He promised Uncle Barry no more dogshit stompers after that incident with the Trickster.

He is so, so screwed. 

It's been a long time since Wally and his mother have had anything resembling a normal relationship. Their communication was reduced to the briefest of exchanges, cutting insults or complete dissociation. Even so, Wally’s still kind of reeling from the abruptness of the discovery. He's been kicked out a few times, that's happened, but it's never stuck and certainly not with Barry and Iris a phone call away ready to weigh in on the situation. Coming home to no home and an AWOL mother is pretty shitty, to be honest. A little warning isn't a lot to ask. And what's even more pathetic, it's not the worst reason why life sucks so much this week. 

_"I can’t keep doing this, Wally. I’m so sorry."_

Fuck that static. The other reasons why his head is such a mess can just get the fuck in line and wait until he catches a little goddamned sleep.

A light breeze sends chills racing over his skin, snapping him out of his fugue state. He allows himself a few lingering moments to steady his elevated pulse before crossing the yard and doubling around the back. 

He does a quick check to make sure there are no lights in the surrounding windows and no signs of early risers walking the neighborhood with their labradoodles or pit-mixes anywhere nearby. Once he’s assured the coast is clear, he scales the trellis crawling with ivy up to his window, pushes the sash open and slips inside. Wally busted the latch years ago and no one has ever bothered to fix it. It’s one of the few breaks he’s caught in recent days so he’ll gladly take it. 

It might be his least favorite place in the world, but the fact that he has it to himself (until the new owners show up) makes up for it just a little bit. 

***********************

Wally came back to the house last week finding a mountain of trash bags at the curb. A quick adjustment at the last microsecond just barely kept him from colliding into them like a noob. But it wasn't entirely his fault. That shit wasn't supposed to be there. Garbage day pickup was still several days away and he couldn’t remember the last time his mother did a spring cleaning. 

He guesses that should have been his first clue something was up.

When he approached the house, he noticed the glow of the front porch lamp, but there wasn’t a single light on inside, an unusual thing for his mother despite the late hour. It wasn’t that she ever kept a light on for him, because she didn’t care less what Wally came home to. She just felt safer keeping the place lit, something about being home alone too much of the time. Wally supposed that was true with his dad being away more often than not. Still, there was a strange feeling crawling through his gut, a sense of wrongness that he couldn’t pinpoint or shake off.

As he approached, the brightly painted door shone like a beacon in the dark. The scuff marks from his sneakers and his father's boots were gone, hidden behind a shiny new kick plate. It took him another moment or two to register the unmistakable smell of new paint. Each of these things struck him as odd, but when he got close enough to discover the hanging lock box, Wally felt his stomach plummet. He took a shaky breath as he numbly examined the lock before stepping back and turning around. 

There, posted in his yard was a ‘FOR SALE’ sign from Blue Sky Realty and a ‘SOLD’ banner tacked on like someone’s idea of an extremely bad joke. 

The pieces came together in a fragmented jumble of thought; the tremendous number of trash bags sitting on the curb, the missing sedan in the driveway, darkened windows, a freshly painted front door, and a fucking ‘SOLD’ realtor sign. 

Holy shit. 

His mother sold the house and skipped the fuck out. 

*

*

*

Wally would love to pretend there's some logical explanation for his current predicament other than the one that's literally staring him in the face, but years of bullshit make that impossible. Wally knew the woman didn't love him, but having her skip out was still kind of fucked up.

To be honest, maybe he's been waiting for something exactly like this to happen, waiting for a choice to be made _for_ him. But it's not how things were supposed to go. Wally could've left in a few years like a normal kid growing up, instead of getting dumped and left homeless at fifteen.

Apparently, that was too much to expect.

It seems unlikely that his mother could put the house on the market and pack everything up without Wally catching on, (Robin would have a few choice things to say about Wally's inattentiveness, that's fer sure) but considering how infrequently Wally went home ( _not a home_ ) and how often he spent the entirety of that time solely in his room avoiding his mother and anything having to do with her, it’s really not all that surprising. 

To be honest, he can’t really remember the last time he and his mother even exchanged words.

Wally stayed away from the house for days at a time. There would have been plenty of time to hire a moving service and get the job done quickly. His mother would be able to start over now, somewhere new, without having to answer to anyone for abandoning her kid, not even Barry and Iris Allen.

Well, it certainly took her long enough.

He stared at that SOLD banner for an insanely long time, letting the idea sink in. A strange mix of dread and resignation rose up inside him, a disquieting sense of being overwhelmed as the magnitude of his situation finally began to register. Because unless his pitiful excuse of a mother called him to let him in on the joke, (which was about as likely as Robin unmasking and somersaulting naked through Mt. Justice singing show tunes) he was sunk. It meant Wally was finally going to have to come clean about a part of his life he could barely admit to in the space of his own head. 

_His own parents didn't love him and didn't want him. He was a wreck inside. And he had lied to everyone he cared about._

Well, at least with Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris out of town he had a little time to come to terms with it.

Forcing the lock would have only alerted the realtor someone had broken in, pretty much the last thing Wally needed. What he needed was some time to get his shit together, to come up with a plan, which was why he made with the stealth and slipped in his bedroom window instead, the way he’s done on dozens of occasions when he needed to avoid a direct confrontation with his mom or dad.

Over the years he’s seen his room in various states of chaos; occasionally stripped down to the barest essentials as punishment, or torn apart at other times from Rudy’s impotent rage. Seeing it wiped clean of any personal effects was a slap in the face. 

Everything was gone.

He wishes he was exaggerating, but every stick of furniture including his bed and mattress, the chest of drawers, the night table with the busted leg he broke when he first got his powers, and every book, poster, trophy or award that he kept there had been taken away. It was a little like stepping into an alternate reality, but of course since it’s his reality, naturally, it sucks.

There was nothing of his left, no evidence it had been his room at all except for a few impressions on the wall-to-wall carpet and some sun-faded outlines left on the sheet rock. 

Wally kept his flashlight down to avoid alerting the neighbors as he continued his search, but he quickly learned his closet was as bare as the rest of the room. All of his clothing had vanished, along with his sneakers and boots and all of his science textbooks. 

Would it have been too much to ask to leave him with a fucking change of clothing, for fuck’s sake? Wally really didn’t need any more proof of how little his mother cared about him, but the evidence keeps stacking up. It's blowing massive holes in what was once an impressive self denial strategy. 

The only thing untouched was the little hidden panel inside his closet. Wally always kept a few essentials tucked away, including some MRE’s, a tent and a bedroll, which he was immensely relieved to find undisturbed. It’s not much to celebrate, but it was something.

Disgusted, he left his bedroom to carefully explore the rest of the darkened house, turning off his flashlight and switching over to the night vision in his Kid Flash goggles. 

His parent’s bedroom was on the opposite end of the hallway. He never went in there once his parents forbid him from entering, but Wally still has memories of what it looked like when he'd been younger. He almost expected it to be as sterile and bare as his room had been. But it wasn't. The furniture was exactly the way he remembered with a big four poster bed, an over-sized dresser and matching nightstands in a dark walnut color. Not much had changed, except for the empty drawers and closet and the missing bedding. He scoured the room for any clues, receipts, anything, but his mother had done a respectable job vacating the room.

He made his way downstairs to the living room where it too, had been stripped to its bare bones. But the old sofa and loveseat still faced the entertainment center where the flat screen tv and sound system had once been, their old coffee table with water rings a silent testament to his father's many drinking binges.

It was a similar scene in the kitchen. Bare countertops made the space look bigger without all their usual clutter. Unfortunately, all his hopes for a midnight snack died when he inspected the empty fridge and cabinets. He breathes out a soft, "Fuck," at the discovery.

He was really hungry, dammit. A loud grumbling noise echoes his resentment.

He takes a seat at the little dinette overlooking the picture window facing the back yard, the unofficial ground zero of a hundred dysfunctional family meltdowns. Beneath the table, his knee is bouncing up and down so rapidly it’s producing a thrumming sound, like a hummingbird. At least no one is here to yell at him for it. 

Wally couldn’t help but wonder why his mother left in such a hurry, and if it was possible that she had gotten herself into some kind of trouble. 

He deliberated for a few moments before deciding he really didn’t care. 

That woman made extra sure to throw away everything he owned. She didn’t spare her own kid’s welfare a single thought, which is why she didn’t deserve any consideration from him. Even if she was in trouble, it’s not as if he could do anything about it anyway. 

He has to admit to himself that the possibility of foul play is pretty miniscule. Iris and Barry's extended absence gave his mother all the planning and opportunity she could possibly need to make a clean exit. Wally knows no call will come, no text, no letter. She's gone for good.

Explaining it to Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris is gonna be another matter entirely, something he's looking forward to about as much as a good case of road rash. (And if you've ever had gravel excavated from the skin of your legs and bare ass with Betadine and a stiff bristle brush, you know exactly how much that sucks.)

There's just no way they're gonna understand, _"Sorry, Uncle B, mom and dad never loved me so they sold the house and cleared out. Guess you're stuck with me now, huh? Let's order pizza!"_

That may sum things up nicely, but Wally's pretty sure he could give all manner of fucked up explanations and Uncle Barry will just look at him like some poor, traumatized kid and launch a mother-fucking CSI-type investigation to find his wayward parents. His sweet, unsuspecting uncle has no plausible reason why Wally’s parents would leave him high and dry and the real bitch is, it’s all his fault. 

Barry is protective of his family and understands the importance of keeping family matters private, but Wally knows he'll have to consult the League when his parents don't immediately turn up. Their involvement on some level is inevitable and he's frustrated with himself for not realizing that certainty before now. League families get special consideration because of the level of risk associated with the heroes' line of work. They'll assume his parents have been targeted or coerced or some other shit. 

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Just a few days ago his only worry was the Boy Wonder digging into his personal shit. Seems silly now that his life is about to go completely tits up. 

Concern for the Wests' safety and Barry and Wally's identities will make the Flash’s Rogues immediate suspects, and won't Cold just love that shit? He's gonna be pissed as hell when Flash reads him the riot act. Wally feels sorta bad that Flash and the League are gonna be breathing down their necks, especially when they've got nothing to do with Wally's world going sideways, but he's gonna have enough to contend with on his own. 

His folks will have to go completely off the grid if they have any hope of staying clear of the Flash. He wouldn't put it past them, but if they haven't been extremely careful to cover their tracks it's just a matter of time before League resources turn them out. 

There's a grim bit of satisfaction imagining his parents reaction when the Flash catches up to them looking for answers, or better yet, the Dark Knight himself. Mary and Rudy's uncanny ability to talk their way out of virtually any situation won't count for shit if Batman shows up on their doorstep. His dad would fer sure piss his pants.

It's a pleasant thought, but not all that likely. Long before that happens Wally will be forced to admit how bad his relationship with his parents truly is. There's no way he can let Barry or the League believe this is anything but a simple case of child abandonment. 

He knows his uncle is going to have a hard time accepting the fact that Wally’s been lying to him and Aunt Iris for their entire relationship. The very idea makes his stomach flip hard enough to lose his dinner. Not that a pickle and a half eaten ham sandwich he swiped from a café table is enough to keep a teenage speedster fed, but he's sort of glad his belly isn't full at the moment.

Barry is an incredibly intelligent and resourceful man, so he’s not completely oblivious to the friction he’s sensed between Wally and his father. Having a metahuman crime fighter as a son’s got to come with a reasonable amount of bullshit, and it’s expected that a well-meaning father would have some concerns over his son's safety and his future. If only that were the truth.

Uncle has no idea how truly toxic their relationship is because he’s never seen his mother and father treat Wally badly. As far as Auntie and Uncle are concerned, Wally’s been brought up in a good home with loving parents. He won’t understand anything about this situation and Wally can’t really blame him. 

Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris will come home and be at a loss. They’ll want to find his parents and talk to them to get to the bottom of what they’ll assume is some giant misunderstanding. Well, good luck to them. Wally wouldn’t even know where to begin looking. 

He hopes he never has to see either of their lying faces ever again.

It doesn't escape him that he's just as much a liar as his folks. Robin doesn't think he can lie for shit. Man, he's got no idea. 

Later that night he was able to salvage some of his things from the trash outside, but lord only knows what that horrible woman did with the rest. It didn’t matter. He stopped leaving anything relating to Kid Flash there long ago, knowing it was safer to keep them at Uncle Barry’s or inside his room at the Cave. He’s never been more grateful for that foresight. 


	2. Risk Assessment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short chapter. Wally goes home again.

Moonlight spills over the floor as Wally climbs in through his bedroom window, but it’s not like he needs it find his way around. The impressions left by his old furniture lay stamped into the pile of the carpet like old footprints. Looking at the walls where his science awards and trophies were once proudly displayed makes him realize the room is as empty as it’s always felt, so maybe this is better, more honest at least.

The extraordinary people and events touching Wally’s life tend to overshadow a great many things. Having an aunt and uncle who both have busy, exciting careers affords Wally a wide margin of error. He has to check in regularly, but most of the time he’s left to his own devices.

Not surprisingly, his parents have used that same situation to their advantage.

It was easier than you’d think to be convincing parents. All it takes is the occasional phone call laced with false concern, a few PDA’s for the sake of appearances and the obligatory holiday dinner or two. It’s amazing what people will accept if they don’t look too closely. 

There’s no doubt Wally’s life changed for the better when Aunt Iris showed up on his doorstep. Once she began bringing Barry around, she’d given Wally a badly needed friend and role model to share his nerdier tendencies with, someone who didn’t criticize or berate him for the things he liked and got excited about; things like science, superheroes, and of course, the Flash. 

Maybe that's what his father could have been like, in an another alternate universe with another version of himself. But in this universe he was he was nothing more than a convenient outlet for his parents’ unhappiness and resentment. 

Iris and Barry were different. They were the first people who happily made a space for him in their busy lives, who made him feel like he mattered because they cared. Just having them around changed everything for the better for Wally. His parents even treated him better. It might have all been pretend, but Wally could pretend, too, and the relative peace in the West household was worth it, for as long as it would last. 

Of course, underneath all the pleasant dinners and holiday get-togethers, the fractured relationship between Wally and his parents lay under the surface like a patch of thin ice. And if you've ever seen the sheer disaster that is Kid Flash running over ice, well, it's no surprise how it was gonna eventually go. Yeah, he supposes it was always gonna go down.

******************************************

Somewhere down the line, Wally took his family’s dysfunction to heart, unable to shake the feeling that some of it had been his own fault. 

His parents learned the finer points of discretion and deceit from their earlier mistakes and Wally has been right there from the beginning, feeding into the illusion of a normal family for years. Factor in packed schedules and superhero crime fighting and it’s no wonder no one ever guessed Wally’s parents could barely stand the sight of him. He’s done his best to pretend and look where that's got him; squatting in his old room, hungry as a stray dog, trying to figure out his next move.

Wally’s plan had always been simple. Make it through high school with the grades to pull a decent scholarship. Then he could go live on campus somewhere, far away from his douchebag mother and father, never looking back. He wasn’t sure about his major yet, maybe forensics like his Uncle Barry, but it didn’t matter. All he needed was a good job that could support his crazy metabolism while moonlighting as a hero. He could just push through all the bullshit without ever having to confront the disaster known as his true home life with anyone. He’d move on and leave it all behind him, like he always intended. 

He could manage that much, or so he thought. But noooooooo! His crazy-ass mother couldn’t wait, she just had to go and fuck with his plan by selling the house and creeping out of his life like the dickhead she is, leaving him with a metric fuck-ton of explaining to do. 

Mary and Rudy West have essentially been background figures in his life, cardboard cutouts of real parents, but even their limited roles require some communication. Which means Barry and Iris are going to notice complete radio silence from his mother at some point in the very near future. 

To be honest, the moment Barry gets back he’ll probably take a run past the house and then...BOOM!...Wally’s gonna finally eat that shit sandwich. Because how the fuck does a fifteen year old explain his sudden abandonment and homelessness to an aunt and uncle who have no earthly clue about Wally’s damaged relationship with his parents, a relationship he himself has been complicit in concealing from everyone? How can he even pretend to know how he’s going to handle this? 

Maybe Barry’s police connections can track the crazy bitch down and his uncle can go and ask her himself, see how she likes being put on the spot for abandoning her kid. (Not like it’s the first time or anything.) 

But even if that does happen, Wally’s still going to be put under the microscope in the meantime and he’s not sure he can keep it together. He’s not real good at the ‘talking about feelings’ thing. His breakdown in Clark's apartment is a pretty good example.

He cringes at the memory and forces it to the back of his mind.

He hasn’t needed his mother for a long time. It just hurts that she’d leave him...like this. Wally’s done everything she ever asked of him, even lying to Auntie and Uncle for years, going along with her bullshit treatment just so he can keep the relative peace. The least she could’ve done was give Wally some warning before she fucked off. 

It should be a relief, but there’s a terrible thought lurking in his mind, one he hasn’t thought of in a very long time and now it's clawing at him with a terrible new urgency, refusing to be ignored. 

In the past, his parents have made veiled threats about revealing Barry and Wally’s superhero identities to the media. There are lots of people who would pay big money for that kind of information, lots of bad people. That’s what Rudy had said to him, not long after he’d gotten his powers.

Later, Wally dismissed it as one more bullshit way to keep his skinny ass in line. His parents had to realize exposing him and his uncle could potentially put them at risk, too. They were douchebags, but they were family and if they excelled at anything, it was self-preservation. 

Sure, they might not blink about backhanding Wally in the face or screaming how worthless he was, but they wouldn’t deliberately risk his life or Barry’s. At least he never thought so, but now with the house sold and both his mother and father gone, unheard from, Wally’s not so sure he can make that assumption anymore. 

What if his parents _told?_

Would they really do that to him, to their own son? He never used to believe they would do anything that would seriously endanger him. But he never thought his mother would sell the house and leave town either.

He can’t assume he’s safe. Barry and Iris may not be safe.

His aunt and uncle have to be told everything.

Well, not _everything_. He’s leaving out his slutty adventures fer sure. They’ll have enough to worry about without hearing about their nephew’s sordid sexual side adventures. Or his coping strategies. 

His fingers ghost over his forearm, a dangerous pull creeping along the edges of his subconscious. He imagines the razor's edge glinting in the dim light of his room, the feel of flesh parting in its wake....

He takes a deep breath and rakes his fingers through his red hair, scoring his scalp with the sharp edges of his fingernails, as if that little flash of pain could magically force the answers to all his problems to materialize out of thin air or stop him from wanting to distract himself from his problems by drawing a little blood. 

He’s not prepared for this.

Fuck his mother and fuck Rudy, too, those dicks.

He lets his backpack fall from his shoulders, hitting the floor with a muffled thump. He carries what little he owns around with him most of the time now. But he misses his comic books, dammit. And a viable internet connection. 

He’s always been ready to bounce from this place at the first opportunity, which makes it even more ironic that he’s been sneaking back in the last few nights, but Wally figures it beats sleeping on the street. There are other places he can go, but not if he wants to keep his situation on the DL.

He takes a minute to check his phone. He charged it back in Metropolis so it’s good until sometime tomorrow, provided he watches his usage. Aunt Iris made sure he had a decent phone, adding Wally to her plan so she could always get in touch with him. Wally glances at her texts from that afternoon, dotted with cute little emoticons and a photo of herself on the road with the news crew giving the thumbs up sign. He fires off a few goofy emoticons of his own and texts her good night, feeling a tight little knot of emotion from missing her.

Wally opens his closet and grabs his sleeping bag from the concealed panel inside. He pauses to drag the pads of his fingers across tiny gauges in the wood, crudely carved letters that spell ‘KF WUZ HERE’ right below his lightning bolt insignia.

He smiles weakly, remembering how he used to hide food back there when he was younger, forced to squirrel it away all the times his parents withheld food as punishment. He was always proud of that hiding place, getting one over on those ballbusting dickheads. 

Small victories still count. 

Wally hasn’t seen his dad in months, but being back in the house inevitably brings the old memories rushing back, of times he’d much rather forget, but can’t. 


	3. Mind the Gap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wally takes a trip down memory lane.

Wally's mother was content to ignore him most of the time, letting his father discipline him as he saw fit on the occasions he bothered turning up. The woman could be verbally abusive when she wanted to be, but his father got his kicks with mind games, fucking with Wally’s security and self esteem with the occasional drive by the Blue Valley Orphanage.

Other kids got half-hearted stories about the Boogeyman to keep them in line, but not Wally. Rudy liked a more hands-on approach.

His father would pull up to the curb at the entrance of the orphanage in his rusted Ford pickup, open the passenger side door and tell Wally that’s where useless, unwanted, ingrate children went, saying if Wally wasn’t careful he’d end up there, too. 

It sounds stupid now, but Rudy was a scary son-of-a-bitch and pretty convincing to a little kid. The man never made empty threats, as he would soon learn.

  


One summer when Wally was seven, his parents decided they needed a little time to themselves, so they left him at the orphanage doors with a change of clothes, a Flash action figure, and a toothbrush in his school backpack with strict instructions to keep his mouth shut until they came to pick him up. 

He spent two weeks there in silence, shrinking away from concerned social workers and volunteers in the hope his folks would come back and get him if he was a good boy and did just as he was told. Some of the kids there tried to talk to him, but after a while they lost interest and gave up. After a few weeks, Wally had begun to believe his parents never had any intention of coming back to get him. 

He did his best to isolate himself, but there was a nice counselor at Blue Valley, a young guy fresh out of college who Wally desperately wanted to talk to. He’d had reddish-blonde hair and always brought video games to the orphanage to play with the other kids. He seemed so nice, and so friendly. 

Once Wally figured no one was coming for him, he decided he would talk to him the next time he visited, but then his mother finally appeared and Wally never got the opportunity. 

She looked tearful and harried, telling the administrators Wally had run away while they were on vacation and that she had been looking everywhere for him. Wally had been too stunned to argue, too relieved that he hadn’t been completely forgotten and much too frightened to even considering contradicting her in front of the staff. 

His folks must have been drunk and high if they thought that plan ever had a shot of working, but that’s never stopped them before. 

The incident prompted an investigation from Child Services focused primarily on his mother, in spite of her emotional performance. Turns out the lack of a ‘Missing Persons’ report on file or so much as a legitimate phone call to the authorities made her look pretty bad. There was never any need for her to go to the police when she knew exactly where Wally had been the entire time. 

Wally can’t remember a lot of what happened during the investigation, but he knows he did his best to play into the fabrication to protect his parents, hoping they’d see he was a good son and love him for it. Even if Blue Valley’s orphanage wasn’t anywhere near as bad as Rudy had made it out to be, Wally wanted to show his folks he was worth keeping. 

Without any concrete evidence or incriminating statements from Wally, the investigation was eventually dropped. Child Services conducted follow up interviews and random checks to make sure Wally was safe, but those did little to help his relationship with his folks. 

It didn’t take much time for word to get out about the Wests’ little child abandonment fiasco. Apparently, it’s one thing to _be_ shitty parents, but it’s another when people _knew_ you were shitty parents. 

So, even though Wally tried his hardest to be good, Rudy and Mary took their resentment out on the only person they could. Nothing changed. If anything, things got worse as Wally got older. He was too young to realize he’d sealed his own fate by lying to the investigators. Why would anyone believe him after that? He guesses he deserved it for lying to the people who were trying to help him and would just have to live with the consequences. 

He’d been stupid and gullible to think his parents would change their tune back then, but that’s not the only reason Wally lied. It wasn’t so much about protecting them as it was protecting himself.

During his stay at the orphanage, keeping quiet allowed Wally to listen to some of the other kids’ conversations. He learned about horrific foster home placements and repeated abuses, about kids being returned to parents who kept making the same mistakes. He overheard things that sounded too all too familiar for Wally to dismiss, regardless how much he wanted to be wanted. He knew the system had no guarantees of keeping him safe. Should he say anything against his mom or dad and later be returned to their custody, he’d have a lot to answer for. And Wally already knew all too well that disobeying his father was never a smart idea. 

Rudy liked to think of his parenting style as ‘old school’, but Wally knows child services had other names for the treatment he received, hearing words like ‘abuse’ and ‘neglect’ spoken by his case manager back in Blue Valley another lifetime ago. He’d hoped he and his parents were leaving all that behind when they later moved to Keystone City for a ‘better life’, a ‘fresh start’ they’d said, but he guesses there are some things you can never outrun. 

Wally knows. He’s tried.

He fared much better when Rudy was sober, but that was no guarantee. The man was just as likely to withhold privileges just to make a point. Too often that meant Wally went without meals as punishment. If you didn’t appreciate how the man provided, you sure as hell would after two days locked in the basement without eating.

Rudy’s drunk parenting was a lot more direct and to the point. Wally’s gotten ‘schooled’ by the back of his father’s hand or his closed fist on plenty of nights where he made the simple mistake of showing his face at the wrong time.

As rotten as his history is, Wally knows he never would have met Aunt Iris and Uncle Barry if he had left his parents, and then he never would have become Kid Flash. No amount of bullshit would ever make him wish he had sacrificed those things, not ever. He can accept that all his suffering was the price paid for what he would later become, but he’ll be damned before he’ll ever be thankful to either of those assholes for the shitty hand they dealt him.

He has absolutely no affection for this house, but there is a sense of loss knowing that soon another person will be sleeping where he used to, erasing his history from the place like he never existed and all his pain with it, like none of it ever happened to him. So much bad shit went down here and in the end it all gets gets covered up, just like that half-ass front door paint job. It’s not right, and it certainly isn’t fair, but knowing the shitstorm that’s coming makes him want to hold onto his secrets just a little longer. 

Wally has longed for the day he could put this part of his life behind him. Now that he's faced with that reality, he feels anything but relief. It’s confusing. He’s sacrificed so much to bury the truth and yet, letting it go, something he thought he desperately wanted, makes him just as angry as holding onto it. 

After the incident with child services there were a handful of opportunities that Wally could have exploited to get help, but each time he lost his nerve. The fear that he might land himself in a worse situation kept him awake more nights than he can count. And by the time Aunt Iris came into his life, he wasn’t willing to risk giving her up. She was brilliant, sweet and affectionate and Wally couldn’t get enough of her. He could suck up anything either of his douchebag parents could throw at him, so long as he had Iris and Barry a short run away.

Keeping everything bottled away over the years has torn him up, but he didn’t see much sense in the alternative; crying to Uncle Barry and Aunt Iris about what is essentially old news. Neither of his folks could touch him once he learned to manage his powers and he’s basically healthy and whole (well, sort-of, if you ignore how broken he is on the inside) and with sixteen fast approaching, he’s almost an adult. 

What would be the point now? 

*******

After all that’s happened he should be cheering the fact that his mother was finally out of his life. A part of him was, sort of, but it doesn’t feel like any sort of victory. In fact, he feels pretty much the opposite; hollowed out and small, abandoned by the one person who should have taken care of him and loved him. There’s a finality in her leaving that Wally never imagined processing. His mother didn’t even have the decency to leave him a fucking note. No explanation, no parting insults, no goodbye. 

Nothing. 

He’s spent years trying to figure out why he didn’t measure up, and as a result nearly killed himself in a vain attempt to be the kind of son his parents would have wanted; someone strong, someone others admired, a hero. A part of Kid Flash was birthed from that desperate need, while a part of Wally West died in the aftermath.

After the dust settled, his parents were repulsed by his transformation. He was no longer human; he was a metahuman with a strange physiology and stranger abilities they couldn’t relate to.

He fidgeted endlessly.

He tore up the carpet when he ran through the house.

He needed to eat almost constantly to keep up with his enhanced metabolism.

He talked at superspeed when he was excited.

He couldn't sit still. 

Wally disgusted and annoyed them. He knew this. He'd heard it often enough. But sometimes, when Wally looked really closely, he saw another emotion in their eyes; fear. Wally's own parents were _frightened_ of him. He had not been loved by them in a very long time. 

Becoming a speedster was one of the most special things that's ever happened to Wally, and he couldn't share any of his amazement with the people who should have meant everything to him. The gap between parent and child only widened further, a relationship already strained to the breaking point. And all that while Rudy’s resentment of Barry grew tenfold. 

What emerged, (or what’s left of him) has been hard won, his struggles unknown to everyone around him, not even Iris, Barry or Robin. His parents manipulated him at a very young age to keep the family secrets, to withhold the sources of hurt and humiliation out of fear of bringing more upon himself. He’s essentially dug his own hole and now he'll have to lie in it. The emptiness and darkness of his room is a virtual mirror for his parents’ influence in his life. Wally's fucking sick of it. He wants to move on, but he’s not sure how he can.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After reading 'Do You Like That, Baby?' I wanted to know more about the disastrous relationship between Mary, Rudy, and Wally. music-is-luv was nice enough to let me toss around a few ideas with her before I wrote this and I really appreciate her input. 
> 
> There are some references from the comics and the Justice League animated series throughout, like Wally's ties to the orphanage. I crafted my own version of Wally's backstory originating in Blue Valley and later Keystone. Could the nice guy with reddish-blonde hair at the orphanage be a future version of Wally coming back to help his younger self? That's up to you. I threw him in there for fun. I hope it works for you.


End file.
